


"It'll Get Better"

by TinyFedoraMan



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Depression, Inspired by The Perks of Being a Wallflower, M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Teen Angst, Teenagers, in the form of letters, starts out pretty depressing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9346565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFedoraMan/pseuds/TinyFedoraMan
Summary: Written in the high school years for Rhett and Link,Link is forced by his psychiatrist to write letters to someone he doesn't even know, as a way of getting out anything in his head that is bothering him, or anything he's too afraid to share in person with his psychiatrist. It started while he's in the mental hospital, and continues throughout his senior year in high school.**This was slightly inspired by the Perks of Being a Wallflower format-wise. Everything else has come from my head.**Warnings: Link is depressed, anorexic, and suicidal, so keep that in mind while you read.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Aye! Thanks for clicking. As I said in the summary, the only thing really based off of Perks of Being a Wallflower in this fic is the format and the fact that the letters are to an anonymous person. The rest of the things in this story are purely from my head and Rhett and Link. So don't go in expecting Rhett to be a version of Sam. I hope you enjoy it! I'm pretty new to first person stories. I don't typically like first person, but I like the format.

August 23rd, 1995

Dear friend,

I’m writing to you, because they told me this would be therapeutic and that you won’t judge me for anything said. I’m writing to you, because I have to in order to leave this place. They’ve told me that the letters wouldn’t be read and that they’d be sent to you unopened, but I know for a fact that they’ll read these letters before even sending them to you.

So where do I even begin? My name is Charles, but I go by Link. I’m seventeen years old, and once I’m out of here, I’ll be returning to high school as a senior. After having plenty of mental breakdowns and overdosing on cocaine during my junior year, I’ve ended up in a mental hospital in Raleigh. It’s been about six months since I was dropped here, and I’ve hated every second of it. It’s funny how they put you in here to get better, yet I honestly feel worse being in here than I did being at home. There’s something aggravating about nurses with fake smiles, and being surrounded by thirty other depressed and suicidal teens. Plus, they aren’t even helpful when you tell them you want to kill yourself. I once told a nurse that I wanted to slit my throat with the razor in the bathroom. Honestly, I wasn’t really lying, but she chose to throw her head back and laugh, then gave me an antidepressant, which I flushed down the toilet. Maybe she laughed due to my sarcastic tone of voice? Either way, it really doesn’t matter. This place already sucks. I’m only allowed to see my best friend, Rhett, once a month, and my parents are only allowed to visit on the weekends. So it’s basically just me and my depression isolated in my room every day. But, I have my hopes up. If I act happy for two more weeks, I’m supposed to be released so I can start up school again. Joy.

So the drugs. I was told I should talk about this in the letter to get it out of my head. Like that could really ever happen. The drugs started my sophomore year of high school. It was basically due to pepped up depression and a bad past. (My step dad was abusive so that was a great time. My mom never found out till I was twelve when he beat me up so badly, that it couldn't be hidden from her. So of course, they divorced.) I was staying over at my dad’s house, since by law I have to see him every other weekend. Now, having me come over was basically an excuse for him and my step mother to go out on a date night, because I was mature enough to babysit his two other kids- my half siblings. (My dad has two younger kids. I literally hate every single one of them.) I used to be a good kid and babysit them, but one night, as they all annoyed the absolute hell out of me, I dipped. I fled the house and walked into Lillington, since my dad lives pretty close to town. I’ve always been into the movie, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and I was absolutely pleased when I found out that they were showing Rocky in an old theatre in Lillington. So, I used the five dollars in my wallet to get in, and I had a blast. I stayed a little bit after the show, because I was interested in becoming part of the cast. (If you didn’t know, at the Rocky showings they have a bunch of people casted as the characters to act out the songs and such as it plays on the screen. It’s amazing.) After all, I know every single song. When I started talking to the cast that night, the guy who played Brad and I really hit it off. His name was Brendon and he was seventeen and I was sixteen. Since the show ended far past midnight, the theatre was trying to close for the night… So… Brendon invited me back to his place, which was a small apartment next to the theatre. I already knew my mom, dad, and probably grandparents, would be looking for me, so I declined his offer but promised that I’d be back in two weeks. We sealed the deal with a kiss, and I headed home. Thankfully, my dad and stepmom weren’t even home yet, due to the fact that they spent too much time at a restaurant and had to catch a later showing of Apollo 13. Two weeks soon rolled around, and this time I knew the plan: leave a note in my room saying Rhett needed my help asap, go to Rocky, and then be able to go back to Brendon’s apartment. And I did. Except, I wasn’t expecting to have sex and inject myself with cocaine. It went a little bit like this:

Brendon unlocked his apartment door, and ushered me inside. I awkwardly sat down on his couch, not really knowing what to do with myself. I guess I did the right thing, because he sat right next to me and put an arm around me. His free hand turned my head to face his, then caressed my cheek. “You’re absolutely beautiful, Lincoln.” His smile was genuine, which sent a weird warmth through my body. “Do you really think so? I feel like my chin is just way too pointy and my forehead is huge. Plus I’m pretty fat and my collarbone sticks out…” I could’ve kept going, but I stopped out of surprise as he started to kiss my forehead, then my jawline, then my neck, and my collarbone. He stopped only to lift my shirt up and gently push me onto my back on the couch. “Jesus, Link. Fat? I can see your damn ribs.” So, he started to kiss up my stomach, up my chest, and then my lips. I don’t know what came through me, but I ended up kissing him back. Our kisses slowly became more passionate and more sloppy, and then somewhere between passion and sloppy, our clothing came off. Somehow in that moment, I stopped caring about how ugly I was or how fat I was. I just focused on what he made me feel. It was something I hadn’t felt in a while. Love. I know it sounds cheesy, but it must’ve been true, because after some wonderful sex, I did something I hadn’t done in a few years. I opened up to someone. As we laid there on the floor, sweaty and gasping for breath, he pulled me close to him so we were face-to-face, noses barely skimming. “I want to know more about you, Link.” And so I poured everything out of my head and through my mouth. I told him things I had never even told my best-friend-since-first-grade. I told him everything about my abusive stepdad: what he did to me, things he said to me, the damage he’d caused to me. I told him about my confusion over sexuality. I knew that I wasn’t gay, but I also knew that I wasn’t straight. And that’s when I found out about bisexuality. I told him about my anorexia, my anxiety, my depression, my suicidal thoughts, and daddy issues. His solution? Well, cocaine. Now that I look back at it, I probably should’ve questioned the drug more or read about it before injecting it into my body, but I didn’t. He told me how it would make me forget about all of that and all of those feelings, so I said yes. That was my first time using cocaine. Little did I know that it would turn into a quick downward spiral. I started the drug in October of my sophomore year. Whenever I went to my dad’s house, I did the same thing every weekend. I told him I was going to Rhett’s, then I went to Rocky, where I got casted as Frankenfurter, then I went to Brendon’s for sex and cocaine. Every other weekend soon turned into every weekend after I got my license. Then it turned into every few days. And then every day. And finally to the point where I injected before school, during lunch in my car, and then maybe four times after school. I never had to pay for the cocaine, because Brendon’s price was sex. Not like it mattered, though, because we were secretly boyfriends. I looked for every excuse for him to spend the night whenever my mother had to work night shifts at the hospital. Of course, it all ended the night the voices wouldn’t stop. Over and over every negative thing ever said to me came back. The feeling of Jimmy’s knuckles against my cheek, the crunch of my nose breaking, or his foot connecting with my ribs kept haunting me. I couldn’t stop the thoughts running through my head about how my dad didn’t actually love me. I was just the mistake child to him. The child with that woman he now hates. I couldn’t stop thinking about how he refused to take me to baseball games and such all these years, because I’m “too soft.” I couldn’t stop the tears flooding down my face, or the sobs projecting out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop the knife cutting into my skin, or the amount of times that I put the needle into my arm. Finally, I had had enough of the madness. I injected myself with a lethal dose, and waited until I had fainted onto the bathroom floor. My mother found me an hour later, barely alive on the bathroom floor. So I then was taken to the hospital for a few weeks, and then transported to this lovely mental hospital. It’s been a good six months and I still want to kill myself. But at least I’m not addicted to cocaine anymore. Could’ve done that from home, but instead my mother is out fifty grand, which we can’t afford. Did I mention we’re absolutely broke? Anyways, I gotta go. It’s “lights out time.” Wow I hate this place with every ounce of my soul.

With Much Love, 

Link

P.S. I promise my next letter won’t be as depressing.

**Author's Note:**

> You made it! If this was too depressing for you, I promise it'll get happier. But keep in mind, the way I envision Link is that he suffers from depression. So depressed Link will always pop back up. This is just a chapter with backstory. And if the backstory sounds familiar in any way, I typically use the same backstory in other fics that I've written, because that's just how I like to write my Link. I'm a role player. It's been driven into me to use the same background information. Thank you for reading! I'll try to update soon. ( Also, I didn't copy the idea of Link going to Rocky Horror Picture Show from the book. I've been in love with the film for years, long before reading this beautiful book. I just want to get it straight that this sin't a version of Perks. Just slightly inspired by it.)


End file.
